Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges into History Read online

  Uncle John’s

  BATHROOM

  READER®

  PLUNGES

  INTO

  HISTORY

  Uncle John’s

  BATHROOM

  READER®

  PLUNGES

  INTO

  HISTORY

  The Bathroom Readers’

  Hysterical Society

  Ashland, OR

  San Diego, CA

  UNCLE JOHN’S

  BATHROOM READER

  PLUNGES INTO HISTORY

  © 2001 by Portable Press.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  “Bathroom Reader,” “Portable Press,” and “The Bathroom Readers’ Institute” are registered trademarks of Baker & Taylor, Inc. All rights reserved.

  For information, write

  The Bathroom Readers’ Institute

  P.O. Box 1117

  Ashland, OR 97520

  email: [email protected]

  ISBN-13: 978-1-60710-463-6

  E-book edition: December 2011

  Project Team:

  Gordon Javna, Publisher

  JoAnn Padgett, Director, Editorial & Production

  Elizabeth McNulty, Staff Editor

  Stephanie Spadaccini, Senior Project Editor

  Susan Steiner, Project Editor

  Allison Bocksruker, Project Manager

  THANK YOU!

  The Bathroom Readers’ Hysterical Institute

  sincerely thanks the people whose

  advice and assistance made this book possible.

  Melinda Allman

  Jeff Altemus

  Rudy Babauta

  Bernadette Baillie

  Michael Brunsfeld

  Dale Cornelius

  Bruce Derkash

  John Dollison

  Kait Fairchild

  John Fritzenkotter

  Laurel Graziano

  John “J-Ho” Hogan

  Jack Jennings

  Paddy Laidley

  Georgine Lidell

  Dan Mansfield

  Kathy Missell

  Mana Monzavi

  Pam Lopez-Morlett

  Janet Nelson

  Ellen O’Brien

  Kelly Padgett

  Ken Padgett

  John Rowinski

  Arnold Schmidt

  Annette Sobel

  Sydney Stanley

  Kent Steigerwald

  Charlie Tillinghast

  Cindy Tillinghast

  Marty Vrabel

  Cheri White

  CONTENTS

  A MOVING EXPERIENCE

  It’s a Gas

  The Quest for Longitude

  Life Insurance with Your Latte?

  They Called Her “Lady Lindy”

  ARTSY-FARTSY

  When Readers Moved Their Lips

  Digitized History

  Immanuel Kant Tries Comedy

  Bad History! Bad!

  Van Gogh: An Ear for Trouble

  Unmasking Mona Lisa

  AS THE WORLD TURNS

  A Pox On Your House

  Canada’s Red Baron

  The Mongol Horde

  How Mosquitoes Changed History

  History’s Greatest Travel Bargain

  The Great Leap Backward

  Anagrams

  The Ancient City of King Solomon?

  Why Do They Call It the Dark Ages?

  When Childhood Was Born

  With a Little Help from Barbarians

  BOUDOIR, BATH & BEYOND

  Dirty Secrets in the History of Hygiene (Part I): Man on the Can

  Dirty Secrets in the History of Hygiene (Part II): Rub-a-Dub-Dub

  Dirty Secrets in the History of Hygiene (Part III): Smile

  Class of the Head

  CRUSADES & CRUSADERS

  I Love a Crusade

  The Crusade to End All Crusades

  The Crusader Follies

  Death of a Revolutionary

  My Heroes!

  Crusade of the Stars

  The Crusade That Wasn’t

  Finally, the Last Crusades

  DEAD ENDS

  A Taste for the Unusual

  What a Way to Go! Immortal, But Dead

  The Real Body Snatchers

  Tombstone Territory

  Here Lies

  Grave Matters

  Deathless Prose

  Dear Departed: Burial Customs and Curiosities

  Goodbye Cruel World

  DON’T QUOTE ME ON THAT

  Proven Wrong by History: Part I

  Proven Wrong by History: Part II

  Historical Hindsights

  Proven Wrong by History: Part III

  FASHION VICTIMS

  A Hair Piece

  Makeup to Die For

  Men in Skirts

  Tie One On

  Uncovering Underwear

  Abe Lincoln, Harbinger of Fashion?

  These Boots Aren’t Made for Walking

  FIGHTING WORDS

  Them’s Fightin’ Words: Colonialism

  Them’s Fightin’ Words: In the Trenches

  Them’s Fightin’ Words: At Sea

  Them’s Fightin’ Words: Korea

  GIRLS JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN

  Lady Killer

  Buccaneer Babes

  She Was Only a Pharaoh’s Daughter. . .

  Mata Hari, the Spy Who Wasn’t

  Ladies First

  HOAXES

  World’s Greatest Hoaxes, Plus One

  An 1844 Flight Over the Atlantic? Who Said So!

  Grey Owl

  IT’S ALL ANCIENT HISTORY

  7 Wonders of the Ancient World

  Port-a-Fortress

  It’s All Greek to Me

  Stomped to Death by “Little Boots”

  “Vandal-ized”

  Rome at the Fall of the Empire

  LAW & ORDER

  The Code of Hammurabi

  The Dreyfus Affair, and No, It’s Not a Sex Scandal

  Ye Olde Crime and Punishment

  History’s Hannibal Lecter

  From Italy to Little Italy, the Mafia Comes to America

  LET’S EAT

  Food a Millennium Ago

  Coffee Klatch

  My Dinner With Attila

  The Rich History of Chocolate

  Fiesta!

  Want Fries With That?

  Don’t Hold the Mayo!

  MEDICINE

  Pardon Me, Fritz—Is That My Leg Doing the Polka?

  Breaking the Mold: The Discovery of Penicillin

  Hippocrates, M.D.

  Mr. Jenner and the Milkmaid

  Nurse Nightingale

  Dammit, Jim, I’m a Doctor! And a Medical Hobbyist!

  Milk, Microbes, & Mad Dogs

  MIXED BAG

  How Short Was Napoleon?

  The Hamilton Affair

  Cowboys? We Call ‘Em Sissies!

  Hey, What About Those Freemasons?

  The Ambling Room

  Best List of Bests

  Handicap? What Handicap?

  MUSIC TO MY EARS

  White Guys with Small Heads Didn’t Invent the Banjo

  What’s So Big About Wagner?

  Hitting the High Notes

  Paganini Has Left the Building

  Taking Note: Musical Notation

  History’s Hit Makers

  PEOPLE-POURRI

  Mother Goosed

  Anna & the King: Fact or Fiction


  Carousing Charisma

  Gypsies: Tramps and Thieves?

  Mister Sam, the Whiskey Man

  Talking ‘bout the Titanic

  The Invasion of America

  The Strange Constitution of Stonewall Jackson

  Pop Was A Pope and I’m a Poisoner. Who Am I?

  Listen, My Children. . .

  Pocahontas: The Non-Disney Version

  ROYAL FLUSH

  Best Hideously Inbred Royal Family: The Hapsburgs

  8 1/2 Not-so-Victorian Things About Queen Victoria

  The Swan King’s Castles

  The Hunchback of Northern Fame: The Story of Richard III

  Her Majesty’s a Pretty Nice Girl

  The Adultery Awards

  SAINTS & SINNERS

  Pope-Pourri

  The Pope was a Lady

  Best Crackpot Religious Leader: Rasputin

  Heavy Mettle

  Saint ‘Hood

  Three Wise Men

  SCIENCE

  Hear About the Big Bang?

  Better Living Through Alchemy

  Breaking the Code: Cryptanalysis

  The Sticky Historian

  Don’t Let Your Daughters Grow Up to be Poets

  Darwin’s Cousin and the Apes

  SPORTS

  The Making of a Marathon

  Nazi Olympics

  The Olympics Exposed

  The Game

  STRANGE BUT TRUE

  The Fish that Beat Napoleon

  Without a Leg to Stand On

  Peddling Pricey Petals

  Deadly as Molasses in January

  Waste of a Good Basketball Team

  This Side Up

  The King Who Stole the Congo

  Would it Kill You to Become Emperor of Mexico?

  Before They Were Nazis

  THE REAL WORLD

  The Real Count Dracula

  The Real Jekyll & Hyde

  The Real Braveheart

  The Real Robinson Crusoe

  The Real Lady Godiva

  Will the Real Shakespeare Please Take a Bow?

  The Real Spartacus

  The Real Captain Bligh

  WAR—WHAT ARE WE FIGHTING FOR?

  Shoot on a Shingle

  Catcher, Lawyer, Linguist, Spy

  The Longbow: Not For Sissies

  Is This the Smell of Progress?

  Hitler the Bum

  I Ain’t Giving Back That Medal

  Double-Crossed by a Dead Man

  Monumental Waste of Effort: The Maginot Line

  Most Lopsided War: Spanish-American War

  The 100 Years’ War

  A Snowball’s Chance

  What Were the Wars of the Roses?

  The Phantom Army

  The Original Dogfights

  The Battle of Trafalgar

  WHAT A FIND!

  Poles Apart

  Cortès and the Feathered Serpent

  It’s Not Easy Being Marco Polo

  The Real Legacy of Christopher Columbus

  New World Order

  Henry the Navigator

  Who Conquered the North Pole?

  Which Way Did They Go?

  WHAT A GREAT IDEA!

  Wear Computers Came From

  Off With Their Heads!

  The Monster That Philo Made

  More Bounce to the Ounce

  The Tooth About Dentures

  To Hill and Gone

  Magnificent Failure

  WHEREWORDS: A QUIZ

  WhereWords: A Quiz (His Closet)

  WhereWords: A Quiz (The Bathroom)

  WhereWords: A Quiz (Knight Life)

  WhereWords: A Quiz (Countries of the World)

  WhereWords: A Quiz (Cities of the World)

  WhereWords: A Quiz (Her Closet)

  WhereWords: A Quiz (The Kitchen Table)

  WhereWords: A Quiz (Miscellaneous)

  WORDPLAY

  Being a Nosey Parker

  Mesmerized

  Riddles: A Serious Subject

  Burning with Good Intentions

  Spooner: The Man and His “Isms”

  INTRODUCTION

  * * *

  Made it! We’ve finally reached the introduction, which is always the last stop on the Uncle John’s Express before press time. And as always, it’s been one heck of a ride.

  We started putting out an annual Bathroom Reader in 1988. And after Uncle John’s All Purpose Extra-Strength— our lucky thirteenth edition—we decided that maybe it was time to flush out our system. . .a decision that brought us to our first Number Two in history.

  For years, we heard all you history buffs out there who kept bugging us for “bigger, better, more history, now!” So in addition to our annual fall compendium of “All the Poop That’s Fit to Print,” we busted our hump (our second hump?) to give you yet another (whew!) authoritative Uncle John’s devoted entirely to. . .you guessed it. . .History.

  In twenty-nine sections ranging all over the map, we’ve plumbed the depths of two millennia to bring you history at its best, funniest, and most interesting. Like the History Channel, but without the cheesy actors, Uncle John’s Plunges into History shows you knights and ladies and the pots they peed in; saints and sinners and the bloody battles they fought; kings, queens, and inbetweens, in fact, the entire Royal Flush is represented; as are the real people and events that make up the most bizarre episodes you’ve never heard of. From the grueling tales of the food our ancestors ate, to the dirty secrets of historical hygiene (there’s a whole other meaning to “wrong end of the stick,” friends), we think we’ve got it wiped.

  We know that nobody, history buff or not, wants to lug a crusty old history tome to the throne, so we’ve selected all the best bits—sanitized for your protection—for your reading pleasure, with plenty of full-length articles for longer sittings. So here it is—our first attempt at packing 400-plus pages of the same great stuff, only all about one (well, one pretty big) category: history.

  And now it’s up to you, our loyal readers, to let us know what you think. This is a new thing for us, and we count on you to share your opinions with us. If there’s one thing we’ve learned in all our years at the BRI, it’s that our readers know what they like and they like to let us know too. Keep those letters and email acomin’. We aim to please.

  Now, join us, won’t you, as Uncle John’s makes history.

  —Uncle John and the BRI Staff

  P.S. Check out our website at www.bathroomreader.com.

  And email us at [email protected].

  We’d love to hear from you.

  HEAR ABOUT THE BIG BANG?

  * * *

  Believe it or not.

  According to most scientists, our universe started out as this eensy-weensy piece of matter and metamorphosed into an ever-expanding universe. For SUV owners and people of great girth, this is welcome news. Creation scientists, on the other hand, don’t believe it happened. And you generally can’t convince them that maybe God set off the explosion.

  HUH?

  Explanations of the Big Bang usually cause headaches among people who can’t program VCRs. That’s because the theory states, in essence, “A really long time ago there was nothing, and suddenly there was a whole lot of nothing, which was actually something, but nobody could really see it, even if there was somebody there, which there wasn’t.” Ouch!

  The theory depends chiefly on the early theoretical work of Albert Einstein, the man who invented the “Bad Hair Day.”

  THE MAN WHO HEARD THE BANG

  Russian-American physicist George Gamow announced the Big Bang Theory in 1948. It was based on Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and Cosmological Principle. (Liberal Arts majors: You may want to reach for the aspirin.)

  HERE’S WHAT IT SAYS

  Some 12 to 14 billion years ago, maybe longer, the portion of the universe we can see today was only a few millimeters across (that’s a little smaller than a gnat) and extremely hot (that’s HOT). The
bang in question is the expansion of this small, hot, dense state into the vastly expanding and much cooler cosmos we currently inhabit. The universe is still expanding, gradually increasing the distance between our galaxy and other galaxies. Astronomers have actually observed this, and it fits very nicely with the theory. For a theory to be taken seriously on its way to becoming accepted as fact, it has to undergo rigorous testing. Since 1948, when Gamow first mentioned it, scientists have found the Big Bang Theory consistent with a number of important observations:

  • Astronomers can observe the expansion of the universe.

  • There is an observed abundance of helium, deuterium, and lithium in the universe—three elements that scientists think were synthesized primarily in the first three minutes (wow!) of the universe.

  • The existence of significant amounts of cosmic microwave background radiation.

  The first ever income tax was levied in Great Britain, to fund the wars against Napoleon.

  This last, the cosmic microwave background radiation, is an important observation because radiation appears hotter in distant clouds of gas. Since light travels at a finite speed, we see these distant clouds at an earlier time in the history of the universe, when it was denser and, therefore, hotter.

  WILL THE UNIVERSE GO AWAY?

  One of the questions that keeps paranoiacs awake most nights is whether the currently expanding universe will continue to expand or whether it will ultimately contract and implode. This last is a definite possibility, but it won’t happen tomorrow. We promise.

  THE GRAVITY OF THE SITUATION

  There’s lots more to it, all about how space and time are altered by gravity (yes, Space Rangers, in some models of space-time morphing, you may actually be your own grandfather!), and the possible shape of the universe—ball-shaped, saddle-shaped, flat, or maybe even doughnut-shaped. Which brings up the question of whether the universe is open or closed, that is, infinite or not.

  THAT DOUGHNUT’S NOT FOR DUNKIN’

  In a closed universe like the doughnut-shaped model, you could start off in one direction and, if allowed enough time, ultimately return to your starting point. In an infinite universe, you would never return. Which means that if Kirk and Spock were working in an infinitely expanding universe, they would never have returned to the Enterprise from Pralax V and we would have missed all those great syndicated reruns! And that would have been a shame.